Episode 101: Mark Part 41—Help My Unbelief!

This is an incredibly heart-wrenching account of a father and son locked in an ongoing and deadly battle with a malicious demon—a battle they have been losing. When they go to the disciples for help, they are no help at all! What is the lesson here and what about the controversy over “this kind can’t go out except through prayer and fasting?”

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¹⁴ And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them. ¹⁵ And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him. ¹⁶ And he asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?” ¹⁷ And someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. ¹⁸ And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.” ¹⁹ And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” ²⁰ And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. ²¹ And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. ²² And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” ²³ And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” ²⁴ Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” ²⁵ And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” ²⁶ And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.” ²⁷ But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. ²⁸ And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” ²⁹ And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

Although you wouldn’t think it, this is actually the longest exorcism story in Mark’s Gospel—longer than the Legion account in Mark 5, even. It is also the last exorcism account in Mark—the first, of course, took place in the Capernaum synagogue in chapter one and was a direct response to Yeshua/Jesus’s announcing the arrival of the Kingdom for the first time in His ministry. No surprise, any demons in the area would have violent objections to His announcement and one just happened to be oppressing one of the regular synagogue attendees. Yeshua silenced the demon and delivered the man, and people marveled. Here, after the stunning and provocative events on Mt Hermon where He was transfigured before Peter, James, and John in what the Gospel of Matthew calls a vision, there will be one final demonic showdown—again, this one will be violent. Only this one is violent in more than just words. We’ll have another self-manifestation here, which is easy to miss, of Yeshua doing something that only God can do—in this case, receiving and answering prayer. And, I have to add that although this account is in all the Synoptics, Mark has some really unique features that you don’t find elsewhere. Mark, of course, and all the different Gospel writers, tell the same story emphasizing different facts, in order to promote different aspects of Yeshua’s mission. In Mark, of course, the focus is on Yeshua as the fulfillment of the Yahweh-warrior/arm of the Lord bringing forth the Greater Exodus, or the New Exodus. Matthew is much more concerned with Yeshua as teacher—which is a good thing because Mark almost never tells us anything about the content of His preaching, apart from parables. Imagine life without the Sermon on the Mount! Imagine Luke without the grace parables and the Good Shepherd motif!

Hi, I am Tyler Dawn Rosenquist and welcome to Character in Context, where I teach the historical and ancient sociological context of Scripture with an eye to developing the character of the Messiah. If you prefer written material, I have five years’ worth of blog at theancientbridge.com as well as my six books available on amazon—including a four-volume curriculum series dedicated to teaching Scriptural context in a way that even kids can understand it, called Context for Kids—and I have two video channels on YouTube with free Bible teachings for both adults and kids. You can find the link for those on my website. Past broadcasts of this program can be found at characterincontext.podbean.com and transcripts can be had for most broadcasts at theancientbridge.com. If you have kids, I also have a weekly broadcast where I teach them Bible context in a way that teaches them why they can trust God and how He wants to have a relationship with them through the Messiah.

All Scripture this week comes courtesy of the ESV, the English Standard Version but you can follow along with whatever Bible you want. A list of my resources can be found attached to the transcript for Part two of this series at theancientbridge.com. Let’s get right into the text of Mark chapter nine.

¹⁴ And when they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and scribes arguing with them.

Who is “they”? Yeshua, Peter, James, and John. Where did they come from? The Mount of Transfiguration, Mt Hermon. Presumably, they are entering the villages of Caesarea Philippi on the slope of said mountain. Peter, James, and John shared this vision of Yeshua’s true form and, despite this being the ultimate fanboy moment where they got to see Moses and Elijah, they are told by the Bat Kol, the voice from Heaven, that it is Yeshua they need to hear and obey. Why hear and obey? Because the Greek word used by the writer is akouo, which was used in the Septuagint to translate shema, which means hear and obey and is the word that is specifically used to describe our obligation to hear and obey Yahweh, repeatedly throughout Scripture and most notably in the shema prayer of Deut 6:4-9. And we have seen Yeshua use it many times in telling His disciples and the crowds to listen to Him. I didn’t mention it last week, but this is self-manifesting language. He’s giving His own words divine authority here. So, they are coming down the mountain—another Sinai motif, and there is a commotion—just like when Moses came down with the Two Tablets. Moses encountered gross faithlessness because Israel was worshiping the Golden calf and here in the ancient region of Dan was where Jeroboam set up his own idol. What’s the problem this time? What we will find out is that there is more to faithlessness than idolatry.

Scribes have surrounded the disciples, and we assume they are perhaps from Jerusalem but we don’t have any real reason to assume that. There were scribes in any major population center. The question here is what on earth are they arguing about? Whatever it is, it has drawn a large crowd, polys ochlos, again—we always see references to “the many” of the servant songs in Isaiah throughout this Gospel., no matter where He travels.

¹⁵ And immediately all the crowd, when they saw him, were greatly amazed and ran up to him and greeted him.

In Exodus 34, when Moses comes back down the mountain with the second set of tablets, the people were also amazed because his face was shining from being so near the glory of God. Of course, we have no indication that Yeshua’s face was shining and quite the opposite—what happened in the vision evidently stayed in the vision but they were running up to Him. Evidently, based on what we are about to learn about the activities of His disciples during His absence, they have all been waiting for Him to show up.

¹⁶ And he asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?” 

Disciples were an extension of their teacher and so Yeshua had to find out what the problem was. He couldn’t just say, “Come on you guys, stop arguing, let’s get to Jerusalem.” If He had done that then, by honor/shame rules, Yeshua would have lost face/reputation among the Scribes. They would win by default in whatever the argument was. So, this had to be confronted and dealt with. Anytime there was an audience present, people in the ancient world were forced to choose their every word and action very carefully to avoid being disgraced and discredited—and a discredited Messiah is no good to anyone. We can never forget that the entire Bible happened within a historical and a sociological context—historical is more obvious but by sociological I mean the way people thought and the ideas they accepted about how things were and how they should be. Yeshua had to operate within that reality—He couldn’t create a bubble within which to operate. Sometimes, people see that as an endorsement of this or that (as people have shamefully done in the past with the institution of slavery) but really the truth was that He had a job to do—inaugurate the Kingdom of Heaven on earth and defeat the oppressive forces of sin and death. What had no bearing on that, He generally didn’t outright address even though He often left us clues. But anyway, He had to address this sort of thing, no matter how ridiculous it sometimes was. This, however, was not ridiculous but tragic. If any parent, if any human being really, can read this and not be broken-hearted—then we aren’t reading this for what it is—the story of a real father, his tormented son, and our merciful Savior intervening. And not just intervening, mind you, but entering into the sorrow of it and bringing everyone else into this tragedy as well.

¹⁷ And someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. 

I’ve mentioned before that a man’s students are an extension of himself in the ancient world. So, in bringing the boy to the disciples, it was the same thing in their minds with bringing the boy directly to Yeshua Himself. But this isn’t just someone from the crowd, this is the boy’s father. He does address Yeshua with respect but, as we will see later in the account, there is at the very least frustration in his answer. The boy doesn’t have anything physically wrong with him, but he has a spirit that makes him actually mute. The word for this alalos, is only ever used by Mark and is different from the word used in the account of the deaf Gentile with the speech impediment in Mark 7. But, this is the least of the boy’s problems. This is every parent’s worst nightmare.

¹⁸ And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.” 

This is just beyond horrifying. This is not epilepsy. Epilepsy is an actual physical problem, a neurological disorder where the brain goes haywire sometimes. This is demonic torment. We see demons throughout the Gospel but not all of them seem to be particularly malicious or violent—but this one is. If this had been a simple matter of healing, possibly the disciples would not have failed but they did fail. In fact, this is the only recorded failure we see. Why here and why now? They had ministered in two’s before, and successfully. Were they showing off? Were they competing to see who could do it or who should? Goodness knows they were often and very obsessed with their ranking. Or maybe, in light of the first century beliefs about Mt Hermon, were they intimidated by being at the gates of hell? On the devil’s doorstep? Or maybe this demon really was empowered by the locale. In any event, the disciples were asked and they were not able—and I take this as meaning that none of the nine who were left in the villages were able. This was incredibly shameful to their teacher. This is turning into an accusation about Yeshua’s claims to authority and, of course, the scribes are jumping right on it. Of course, let us not forget that the scribes weren’t casting it out either…so, there’s that.

¹⁹ And he answered them, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” 

What does it mean to be a faithless generation? It means to lack trust in the power of God over the enemy. And sometimes, we forget that the power to cast out demons isn’t our power but God’s. Demons don’t care about Tyler. Demons care a whole lot about Yeshua’s authority. The disciples, at this point in the game, about to turn south toward Jerusalem for His final Passover and crucifixion, need to be able to function independently based on their absolute trust in Yeshua’s authority, given to them when they were initially sent out on their ministry tours in Mark 6. He is well aware that the time left is desperately short and that they need to understand the unlimited nature of His authority and what He has granted to them to accomplish in His name. But right now is not a teaching moment because this man’s son is in torment.

²⁰ And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth

As I said, this is one malicious demon. It sees Yeshua and immediately starts attacking the boy. It doesn’t cry out but goes right to trying to harm him. All the other demons so far have been verbally challenging Him, begging for mercy, that sort of thing but this one really seems to be making a power play and holding the boy hostage. Yeshua’s response is not what we have come to expect—which is to just ruthlessly cast the thing out. But then, He loves to keep us from being able to put him in a box and here He is going to teach us something very important.

²¹ And Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. ²² And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him.

Yeshua has to be somewhat surprised at how nasty and bold this demon is, and right in His face too. If it responds to Yeshua that way, what must this boy’s life be like? So, Yeshua shows that He cares by asking. In an honor/shame society, people often looked at the demonically oppressed as though they are sinners who are deserving of the torment. You don’t ask why someone else has hardship in a world like that, you just figure it is divine retribution for a hidden sin. Such was the tyranny of ancient honor/shame cultures. Yeshua doesn’t ask, “What sin did he commit?” or more to the point, “What was your sin that he is possessed like this?” That’s what his fellow townspeople were probably always asking. Yeshua instead asks the human question—“How long has he been living like this?” The father responds, “Since childhood.” And he further goes on to describe their terrible suffering. This is no garden variety demon of lust or deception or whatever—this demon is determined to torture the boy until he eventually dies. I want you to imagine the desperation of this father who has nowhere else to go and absolutely no hope. When he heard that Yeshua was in the area, he brought his son, only to find the disciples instead. And, one by one, the nine of them proved powerless. He loves his son—if he didn’t, he could have killed him and no one would have raised an eyebrow. After all, he was in a pagan city and pater familias was a real deal. It would be almost another hundred years before Hadrian made it illegal for a father to kill his wayward children. Likely, the synagogue would have also turned a blind eye if this boy had turned up deceased-it was only a matter of time anyway. But this man loves his son, very deeply, obviously. Caring for this child would have been very difficult and it exposed the family to accusations and shame. Plus, they lived under the constant fear of their child dying or being damaged beyond repair. My friends who have children with severe forms of autism often know this father’s struggle and what life was like for the family. No, autism is not demonic, but the danger to the child can be comparable to this depending on the form and the severity.

But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” 

We can forgive his rebuke here and disbelief. We can hardly imagine the day-to-day realities of his life up to this desperate moment. He can scarcely hope at this point that, with the abject failure of His disciples, that the teacher will be able to do any better. But he does beg for mercy and he does ask for help. I want to compare this to the cry of the leper in chapter one, who says, “If you are willing you can make me clean.” This time, he has seen too much failure to be so generous with his faith.

²³ And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” 

Some scholars say this is tongue in cheek and Yeshua is being playful but I can’t imagine that those people have ever had to deal with a developmentally disabled child who could fly out of control. It’s terrifying beyond belief and this would take that up a notch because there is a demon, with whom they have been dealing for years—FOR YEARS—actively trying to kill their son. This isn’t funny, this is desperate. Yeshua didn’t ask about the boy’s plight so that He could make light of the situation. He humanized this boy for the crowd, He won’t turn the situation into any sort of light-hearted mockery now. But right now, the man needs to snap out of his well-earned fatalism. He needs to believe and he needs to believe now in the presence of Yeshua. The man has challenged Yeshua and Yeshua volleys the challenge back. “I can do this, but can you take this seriously enough to muster trust that God can overcome this?”

Every parent of a significantly special needs child has, on many occasions, reached the end of their rope. I can think of the times that I was falling apart and then something or someone would snap me out of it because my son needed me and I couldn’t afford to not be strong for him. This last time, with Andrew in November—I had never been so scared in my life and watching him in agony that drugs couldn’t do anything about because his brain was being crushed from the inside, and still being stressed out from the surgery in October. I lost it at one point, I just absolutely lost it. I didn’t know if I was ever going to get my kid back alive or with his personality intact. But there came a moment where I needed to snap out of it. Every parent who has been through this can tell you the same thing. And it works with this dad. What Yeshua said pierced his heart and focused him on the goal again.

²⁴ Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” 

The father immediately snaps out of it and cries out, ironically because his son is mute and cannot cry out for himself. “I believe; help my unbelief!” Pisteuo and apistea are both related to pistis, translated as faithfulness in the fruit of the Spirit but it can have a lot of different nuances. It can mean trust or allegiance—what it doesn’t mean is just empty belief. Like, you believe that it’s a bad idea to jump off the bridge but you do it anyway. The demons believed that Yeshua was the Messiah, the Son of God, but they didn’t follow or trust him. In the west, we are focused on believing all the right things instead of placing our trust and allegiance in those things. It is one thing to believe in eternal life in the world to come and quite another thing to trust God so much that you won’t hesitate to die in His service because you know He keeps His promises. So, what Yeshua is demanding of Him, here, is not mental assent that, yeah, it is conceivably possible that the demon can leave his son. It is trust that not only is it possible, but that Yeshua has the absolute authority to do it.

I want you to notice something here that is very profound but easily missed. The father’s response takes the form of a prayer. I mean, would you come to me and ask me to help with your unbelief? Of course not. I can’t do anything of the sort. All I can do is point you in the direction of Yeshua and tell you to give Him your absolute allegiance and He will teach you to trust Him but you would never expect me to generate such a thing. I can’t. No one can. Only God can overcome our distrust. This man, whether he was aware of it or not, just prayed to Yeshua and asked for something only God can give.

²⁵ And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” 

Now that the man has placed his imperfect trust in Yeshua and has asked Him for what only God can give—help in the area of distrust—Yeshua goes back to business as usual. Now, even though the man said nothing about this being a spirit causing deafness, Yeshua discerns the nature of the beast (so to speak) and not only commands it to leave but to never come back again. So, this is a rare double-rebuke of a demon. And it might seem odd because we don’t see Yeshua having to add a command to not come back in any other account but let’s look at the nature of this particular demon. This is the nastiest one yet—worse than Legion. Legion came running to Yeshua, begging not to be treated badly. The other demons were similar. But this one was so bold and hateful that it was trying to harm the boy right in Yeshua’s face. Any amount of hatred that isn’t even concerned with its own well-being is alarming. All the rest of these demons were very concerned with their own survival but not this one. It was just bent on destruction. So this one had to be told to never come back. And there are some who say that maybe there was a generational curse but nothing is said about it, or that there was a particular sin—maybe of idolatry—in the home but nothing is said about that either. I think we still like to look for reasons why such things are deserved but, in any case, we know this boy has been possessed since he was little and so I don’t think we want to go there and say that a child can earn a demon. Just really goes to show how underhanded and heartless and ruthless the enemy and his kingdom truly are.

²⁶ And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.” 

So, evidently it can make noise and it is still so evil that it either keeps trying to hurt the boy or it is resisting Yeshua’s authority to the very last but it finally comes out. There is quite the debate within the scholarly community. Most seem to take this as a comparison—the boy was “like” a corpse, while others take it literally. It actually doesn’t matter as far as the account goes because the ordeal has been so difficult that when the demon leaves the boy he at least appears dead to all the onlookers. And those people in that age all knew what dead people look like. Me? I have remarkably never seen someone who was dead except at two funerals I was singing at and neither of those people were close to me. I don’t know how you get to be fifty-one years old and have never seen a loved one dead but I just haven’t. I have been incredibly blessed. But these people knew what a dead person looked like.

²⁷ But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. 

Yeshua physically takes the boy by the hand—a very common motif in miracle stories. We have the account with the leper, Peter’s mother in law, Jairus’s daughter, the people in Nazareth and also in Capernaum, the deaf Gentile with the speech impediment, the blind man who say men walking like trees, blind Bartimaeus, the little children, and the crippled woman in the synagogue. Pay close attention to how Yeshua uses His hands and what happens—including accounts like the breaking of bread for the thousands. Now, we also have to pay attention to the counter theme of what His enemies do with their hands—they nitpick over ritual cleanliness in ways unauthorized by the Torah, Yeshua says they will not lift a finger to help those burdened by their extra commandments, they use their hands to arrest and physically attack Yeshua, etc… And then when we see the apostles later, they use their hands the same ways Yeshua used His. We never see them being violent, ever, but they are sometimes subjected to violence at the hands of their enemies. So, we have this pattern of using hands to give life and provision and encouragement and blessing and then you have this other pattern of using hands to harm and take and oppress and withhold aid. The hands will tell you who is and is not following Yeshua. I know I have to be very careful because my entire ministry is based on what I write. Even this teaching is being read from a script because, if left to my own devices, on my gosh I end up on crazy rabbit trails..

But, Yeshua takes the boy by the hand and lifts him up and he rises. The word for lifts up, you can probably guess if you have been listening to the rest of this series, is egeiro, our common word for resurrection throughout Mark’s Gospel, but we also have a word from last week that I didn’t mention, anistemi—which is the word used by Mark to recount Yeshua’s words coming back down the mountain, “And as they were coming down the mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen, until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.” So, the resurrection imagery here is unmistakable and no coincidence. The boy wasn’t dead but he might as well have been before Yeshua defeated this particularly destructive demon and bringing him back to community and the world of the living. This was a cosmic battle of epic proportions at the place referred to in Scripture as “the gates of hell” aka Mt Hermon.

²⁸ And when he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?” 

So, they go back to where they were staying—I mean, we know they were there six days before the four climbed the mountain so they had to be staying somewhere. And they actually do the right thing and ask Him, but only once they were alone, “What the heck??? Why couldn’t we cast that out???? I mean, we’ve been able to cast everything out and heal everyone and this thing wouldn’t budge. We all tried. It was SO EMBARASSING!”

²⁹ And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

And, I know, some of you are saying, “Whoa there, girlie, I know that verse says “prayer and fasting” but there’s a problem with that. You know there are different manuscripts of the New Testament texts just like there are different manuscripts of the Hebrew Scriptures before the Masorites decided on the “one true way” the Scriptures needed to be recorded about 1200 years ago. But you get scribes making mistakes, you have them accidentally adding something to one Gospel that’s from another, or on the wrong line, or whatever and it doesn’t radically change the meaning. It’s just an error. So, we have some manuscripts that are more important and reliable than others. Some later versions have some pretty glaring errors that you can’t find in any earlier documents. Then, sometimes it appears as though a scribe is trying to be “helpful” and I think this was the case here. It’s commonly assumed to be original because it ended up in the KJV but it just isn’t warranted. And there was a huge controversy over it that I am not going to go into now but I will post a link to the debate. https://carm.org/king-james-onlyism/was-matthew-1721-removed-from-modern-bibles/

I prefer it to just be “and prayer” and these are my reasons. (1) I am not averse to fasting and do it and especially in deliverance related situations if I know ahead of time that I am going to have to do such a thing, (2) We have Yeshua’s own words in Mark 2 that it was inappropriate for His disciples to fast as long as He, the Bridegroom, was with them, but once He is gone they would fast—are we truly to believe that He set them up for failure by not having them fast—if that indeed was the only way a demon like this could be dealt with? (3) I think what we have here was a two-fold failure on the part of not praying—by the father and by the disciples. I will explain.

First of all, I think the disciples had gotten the idea that they were doing the healings and exorcisms themselves. I say this because they asked, “Why couldn’t we do this?” It wasn’t, “What did we do wrong?” Because, I am going to just flat out say that once we get the idea that we can do any of this by our own power or authority, we’re just dead wrong, and even though God will work through us anyway if there is something He really wants to accomplish. But it was never them. It was always God working His will through them, okay? And so, we have to lean on God—always and forever—and we can never forget who is actually fighting the battle. I think the disciples had experienced a lot of success and I have to say it had to be something to have people dazzled by your “abilities.” Not many people can hold up under that kind of adoration and all the posturing we have seen from them is proof that they are ambitious and do not have their minds in the right game. They have their minds on worldly matters but that can’t continue. I think they didn’t go to God and honor Him with their petitions and that He didn’t allow this exorcism to work for even one of the nine. I think this was a reality check.

But Yeshua also says this type cannot go out except by prayer—if He included fasting then that is puzzling since the text says nothing about Him fasting—and that is exactly what He compelled the father of the boy to do when he said, “I believe, help my unbelief!” It was a prayer. It was, in fact, the kind of prayer that God always answers. God always answers Kingdom-advancing prayers but not generally self-serving prayers. If you ask for wisdom, or to know Him better, or for more faith, or for better fruit, or to be forgiven or for the spread of the Gospel—well, those prayers are the very definition of calling on the Name of the Lord because they advance His purposes in the world. The father asked for a good thing. “Help my lack of trust.” Yeshua responds to that prayer with an action that will guarantee the father never doubts the power of God ever again.

Before we close, I want to mention a quote from D.L. Moody: “There are three kinds of faith in Christ: 1. Struggling faith, like a man in deep water, desperately swimming. 2. Clinging faith, like a man hanging to the side of a boat. 3. Resting faith, like a man safely within the boat (and able to reach out with a hand to help someone else get in).” This father’s faith is the first kind—and with good cause. He’s been struggling to keep his head above water (and his son’s head) for so long and he is just in survival mode. Let’s just say that Yeshua just threw the man and his son into the boat and told them that they could finally rest. Do you think this man will have a quiet and private faith from now on? No, he will forever be talking about what God did for his son.

Next week, we get another Messianic reality check with the second passion prediction.